6347 Neorealism, the Bra and the New Indian Woman in Satyajit

Home , Anil Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Narendranath Mitra, Neorealism (art)

Word count: 6347

Neorealism, the Bra and the New Indian Woman in Satyajit Ray’s The Big City

Abstract

Through the filmic lens of West Bengali director Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece the The Big City

(Mahanagar 1963), this article focuses on the symbolic meaning of the bra in postcolonial

India. It reveals the ways in which the semi-hidden bra in the film functions as a contested site of patriarchal Indian modernity versus euro-western modernity, and in the style of neorealist cinema a utopia of postcolonial and postnational feminine agency. Through textual analysis, the article delves into the influences of Italian neorealist cinema on Ray’s aesthetic choices and compares power, dress and femininity across western and non-western contexts. Articulating cultural similarities, differences and how dream-like cinematic narratives of everyday practices of power dressing provide a window into neoliberal performativity and utopian ambitions for feminine agency during periods of modernization and change.

Keywords: bra, India, film, neorealist, postcolonial

Introduction

Shortly after Indian independence from British rule in 1947, between 1959 and 1964, non- mainstream, neorealist, west Bengali directors Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak began to address the impact and anxieties of modernity on the Indian family and Indian women. In the black and white Bengali movie, The Big City (Mahanagar 1963) based on a short story by

Narendranath Mitra, director Satyajit Ray depicts the relationship between an urban lower- middle-class husband and a wife living in 1960s Calcutta (renamed to Kolkata in 2011) and their conflicting anxieties of modern and traditional values of living in an emerging and developing postcolonial metropolis almost twenty years after Independence. The film begins with a sky view of a moving tram pylon. The viewer is catapulted into a moving journey, the direction cannot be seen, thus building up a sense of anxiety and excitement into the urban and postcolonial unknown.

The film sees protagonist Arati Mazumdar (played by actress Madhabi Mukherjee) grapple with leaving the private sphere of her home to go to her first job as a sales girl during a time where few middle-class Indian women left the private sphere of the home into the public sphere of the city and the workplace. Arati decides to work after her husband Subrata (played actor by

Anil Chatterjee) loses his job and struggles to provide for their five-year-old son Pintu;

Subrata’s fifteen-year-old sister Bani (played by actress Jaya Bhaduri), Subrata’s mother and father, all of whom Arati lives with. Arati begins to enjoy the freedom, money and mobility of going to work. However, the pleasure that she gains from working begins to contradict the feelings of her husband, who slowly begins to feel worthless and emasculated by the thought of living on Arati’s wages alone. This plot is not explicitly expressed, instead the impact of conflicts of modernity upon sexuality and gender identity making are seen through Arati’s

display of and intimate desire and aspiration for material goods. This is seen in the transformation of Arati’s sartorial identity upon entering the big city/workplace, and importantly the spectacle of Arati’s white everyday bra under her translucent sari blouse. This article focuses on the untold story of Arati’s bra. It reveals a subliminal set of meanings to

Arati’s agency in the home and the city, within a backdrop of postcolonial modernization, globalization and urbanisation that other material items do not reveal.

Setting the Scene: A Woman’s Place is in the Home?

15 minutes into the film a conversation takes place in Bangla between Arati and Subrata regarding whether Arati should or should not work. Arati asks Subrata ‘do you or don’t you want me to work?” to which Subrata replies “no, I don’t want you, [pause] well, if you were a little less attractive, then I would let you go [smiles], a worker like you would reduce the output of the whole office.

Figure 1: There’s an English saying…a woman’s place is in the home (0:15 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

In the scene, Subrata continues to joke with Arati, teasing her that he like his father is conservative and believes a “womans place is in the home” and that “a housewife should stay in the house and not go roaming around”. It is through this conversation that Ray introduces the colonial discourse of ‘the question of women’ (Sangari and Vaid 1990; Chatterjee 1986).

During the British Raj (Brirish colonial rule), the British believed the only hope for moral redemption of Indian society was through its treatment of Indian women, thus Indian women became the bearers of tradition and nationhood (Banerji 2008: 235; Bhatia 2003; Chatterjee

1986; Tarlo 1996). This led to various women’s reform movements being started by both westernized, middle-class and upper-class Hindu/Brahmo Bengali men. Middle-class and upper-class Hindu/Brahmo Bengali men, utilized the colonial discourse of civilization and enlightenment (Bannerji 2001; Banerji 2008; Chatterjee 1986; Forbes 1996) to start the Bengali

Renaissance, a strong nationalist movement leading up to India’s independence in 1947 (Tarlo

1996). Hindu and Brahmo men postulated that women maintain a relationship between the

ghar (home/inner) and bahir (world/outer) using dress as a moral signifier of her social role, her samaj (society) and her class (Chatterjee 1986: 624). This included how a woman should cover and uncover her body and what styles and dress were morally and aesthetically suitable for middle-class society (Bannerji 2001; Bhatia 2003; Karlekar 2005). As women began to go to schools mostly run by western missionaries who privileged western modernity over Indian modernity. The emergence of western modern values meant wealthy upper-class Brahmo families too applied progressive western values to Hindu religious thinking to create a competing model of Indian modernity, leading to what was known as the bhadro (respectable) samaj (society). The Bhadro Samaj was an upper-middle class society/sect, mostly elite

Hindu/Brahmo men and particularly Bengali babus’ (respectable gentlemen) who rejected various Vedic doctrines such as the caste system, dowry system, idol worship, and encouraged education, rational thinking, enlightenment and the emancipation of women. Both Subrata and his father are Bengali babus’. Babu’s emulated the dress of western ruling classes (Banerji

2008) and encouraged their wives to adopt a ‘new Indian’ identity including western customs and ways of dressing and a certain level of education only to make them better wives and mothers. Babu’s believed Indian women’s place was ultimately in the home, therefore too much education and modernization would distance them from the domestic realm of tradition and bring them closer to the threat of western cultural values and cultural loss. This blend of upper-class Hinduism, colonial and Brahmo masculinity and its tensions are portrayed in both

Subrata and his father.

Subrata and his father are quintessential Bengali babus’, Ray depicts this through Subrata and his father’s clothing, as well as character. Both are regularly seen wearing typical babu attire,

Indian style dhoti trousers with a euro-western style shirt, tailored suit jacket, umbrella, satchel and shawl. Initially, Subrata supports Arati working to compensate for his poorly paid

bank clerk job and to self-validate his degree level education on women’s rights. This is depicted in Subrata’s frequent use of English proverbs. Subrata’s father on the other hand, a retired university lecturer, refuses to question Arati working. For Subrata’s father, there is no question where a women’s role in society should be, to him a woman’s role in society is fixed within the domestic realm. Therefore, he is seen to internalise Arati’s choice to work as a sign of personal emasculation and his failure to raise a son who is able to provide. In this scene, Subrata mocks his father’s old-fashioned views, he sarcastically jokes with Arati saying just like his father he believes ‘a woman’s place is in the home’, yet Subrata’s nervous laughter marks an ambivalence in his core feelings between the old world (like his father) and the new world (Arati) which unravel later in the story as he becomes uneasey with Arati going to work as an attractive woman. Through the questioning of her material choices, he questions his own beliefs on whether a woman’s place is really in the home?

This initial conversation sets the scene. Depicting Subrata’s optimistic yet nervous and Arati’s welcoming attitude towards modernity in terms of sharing equal gender roles, as well as, their aspiration for a better quality of life through greater economic freedom. Subrata and Arati are both seen to be anxious yet allured by modernity and what a modern India has to offer them as an educated, urban middle-class family. However, through Arati’s interaction with material objects and particularly the consistent display of her inherentlyi western bra, a deeper set of gendered meanings of middle-class hopes, dreams and aspirations, as well as transnational style influences are revealed.

Power dressing, the bra and postcoloniality

Ray frequently introduces Arati’s technique for success and her new-found Indian identity through fashion. 31 minutes into the film. Arati is is unsure about starting her new job as a salesgirl.

Arati discusses her fears with Subrata, she states “I’m afraid of one thing. On the day of the interview, I saw girls working there. My my, they were so fashionable. They’re tip-top, how can I work in tattered slippers?” To which Subrata replies “All right, give me a list of thing required to be fashionable. I’ll get an advance payment of my wages from the office to buy them for you” . Arati in the conversation associates fashionable clothes to rules of success and emancipation, a form of ‘power dressing’ (Entwistle 2000). We see later what Arati means by fashionable clothes as she waits for the elevator to her office on the first day of work. Arati is transformed from wearing a thick cotton handloom sari with a thick a cotton blouse to a luxurious sheer handloom sari draped loosely across her chest revealing her shoulder and navel and a bra under her sheer sari blouse. She is also seen wearing sleeper earrings, a ring and carrying a euro-western style handbag. Her reference to ‘other girls in the office’ depicts the ways in patriarchial views of samaj and ways of respectable and fashionable views were internalised by women. During the colonial period upper-class Bengali male intelligentsia consciously engaged with a Euro-western ideal of femininity taken from the English memsahibs, otherwise known as the bhadramahila (bhadra meaning respectable and mahila meaning woman, also known as the gentlewoman). Like Foucault’s response to Victorian sexuality (1978), Bhadramahila’s drew further attention to the female body and sexuality through explicit forms of prohibition. Like the middle-class Hindu men and Brahmo men, through their regime of power and knowledge and concurrent discourse of respectability, took

part in re-shaping how the new women should manage her body and her sexuality through appropriate ways of dressing (Bannerji 2001; Macmillan 2007; Steele 2004; Steele 1985). This was an essential period of time where upper-middle class women switched between western and Indian styles (Bannerji 2001; Karlekar 2005; Macmillan 2007). Particular reference was made to how to manage modest, virtuous and non-sexual sartorial identities. (Bannerji 2001:

103). This was an essential period of time where the Victoriana styles such as high-collared sari blouse with long sleeves, cuffs, collars and jabots became popular, including other modest styles such as the petticoat (worn underneath the sari) shoes, stockings and veils (Karlekar

2005). Although we see Arati grapple with class consciousness through codes of respectable dressing throughout the film, the placement of her bra underneath her sheer blouse contradicts modest, non-sexual and respectable codes of dressing. Here the display of Arati’s bra signifies Comment [Office1]: Introduce sari blouse comment an active postcolonial gaze, an ambivalent spectacle where Ray subconsciously moves away from patriarchal Brahmo/Hindu codes of dressing for Arati, and instead steers the audience towards a heightened sense of forbidden desire and Arati’s agency through this material pleasure.

44 minutes into the film the camera follows Arati on her first day at work as a Salesgirl for

Mukherjee and Co. Arati is seen selling home knitting machines to upper-middle class housewives living within the affluent confines of gated homes in the middle of the city.

Figure 2: Arati on Her First Day as a Salesgirl in her Fashionable Clothes: (0:44 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

The camera follows Arati going from door-to-door in her new fashionable work clothes, and it is within this scene that Arati’s bra emerges. The camera consistently focuses in on her bra

underneath her sari blouse. As Arati enters the upper-middle class home of her first call Mrs

Singha, Arati is seen wearing a transparent blouse through which viewers can see her white bra, somewhat a ‘daring masquerade’ (Cooper 2000:106). This sartorial transformation is

‘puzzling’ since it eroticises and feminises Arati’s identity despite the conscious bid by Ray to depict Arati in the masculine role of the successful breadwinner. Despite Arati’s newfound economic status, she is increasingly feminised through her sartorial transformation of what could be described as ‘provocative transluscent clothing’ (Cooper 2000:106). ‘Ray overarticulates Arati’s liberal presence’ since in reality such ‘brazen sartorial displays’ would cause a scandal both for her family and her patriotic Bengali boss’ Mr Himangshu (Cooper

2000: 106). Such narcissistic sartorial spectacle reveals to the spectator the subconscious ways in which Ray depicts forbiden and surreal aspects of Arati’s femininity that are concealed from herself and the world within the potrayal of a traditional patriarchial family structure (Cooper

2000: 106). The bra thus replaces dream-like, dream sequences, frequently seen within Italian neorealist cinema at the time (Ruberto and Wilson 2007).

Borrowing from the meanings of similar highly sexualised, eroticised and gendered undergarments such as the corset and lingerie (Steele 2004; 1985; Fields 2007; Jantzen et al

2006; Begum 2018), here the semi-hidden nature of the bra is symbolic of the contested space within which the boundaries between Arati’s individual sexual freedom and societal expectations of fashionability, femininity, tradition and modernity are blurred. A space whereby Arati manages her private and public identity (Steele 2004; 1985; Fields 2007;

Jantzen et al 2006) and where practices of domination and resistance subconsciously show through (Foucault 1988; 1978; 1977; Fields 2007; Jantzen et al 2006). The sexualised nature of the bra eroticises and feminises Arati’s masculine existence providing outer emotional support to her newly found modern identity. The practical nature of the bra provides her with

support and security underneath her blouse, therefore providing physical and inner support including a sense of desire, professionalism and empowerment within her existing traditional identity.

The bra is thus a technology of the self (Foucault 1988; 1978; 1977; Fields 2007; Jantzen et al

2006; Begum 2018) a symbolic combination of practices of self-production and care which other items in the film such as the lipstick and the sunglasses fail to afford Arati. In a later scene when Subrata questions Arati’s faithfulness to him, she expresses guilt for taking pleasure in wearing the lipstick gifted by her White-Anglo Indian colleague Edith. Thus the lipstick seemingly fails to deliver the promise of modernity (depicted through her friendship with Edith a western woman), that of a sense of individualism and sexual freedom. Arati also becomes uncomfortable wearing the pair of sunglasses gifted to her by Edith. The sunglasses which initially provided her with a sense of optimism, confidence and independence in the big city, later symbolises Arati’s sense of alienation with modern life as she becomes detached from her role as a wife to Subrata and mother to her five-year-old son Pintu when he becomes sick. Through moving between feelings of compassion towards portrayal of guilt associated with Arati’s wearing of the lipstick and sunglasses, Ray maps the underlying themes of patriarchal nationalist anxiety with global modernity associated with cultural alienation, westernisation and sexual promiscuity on to material objects. However, the untold story of the ambivalent bra blurs this anxiety and the binaries codes of individual/society, traditional/modern, eastern/western, home/world, sexuality/respectability.

The untold story of the bra evades the pessimistic debate of globalisation and modernisation as tantamount to western capitalism. Thus creating an imaginary dreamy in-between space of ambivalence (Bhabha 1977), where Arati is able to perform her identity as both a mother and

working woman, sexual and respectable without the consequences of anxiety and shame.

Although the bra is seamlessly situated within the film, in reality however, this requires unpacking, as it is not clear whether the semi-visibility of the bra and feminised sartorial transformation of Arati’s identity upon her entrance into the workplace is reflective of tastes subconsciously influenced by Ray’s access to middle-class western and Indian education.

Including various art forms during his prolonged studies at Nobel Laureate Rabindranath

Tagore’s Fine Arts Academy (Cooper 2000). Is the bra then a subconscious reflection of the middle-class Bengali habitus which Ray operated within?

Fashioning middle-class dreams and hopes through neorealist cinema

Ray, a western educated middle-class Bengali inspired by Hollywood, French and Italian neorealist cinema often depicted middle-class tastes in culture and arts within his movies

(Cooper 2000). Although, Ray is known to create marginal and alternative spaces beyond that of his middle-class bhadralok (middle-class gentleman) identity in his films, the sartorial choices and references visually incorporated into his films are forms of symbolic capital which inscribe social order and classification through middle-class taste distinctions (Bourdieu 1984).

It is during a work trip to London headquarters from his Calcutta advertising agency that Ray became heavily influenced by Italian neorealist cinema and the hallmark use of city locations, women’s positions and contested local identities (Konewko 2016; Cooper 2000; Ruberto and

Wilson 2007). The influence of western culture on Ray, raises questions as to whether Ray subconsciously reproduces orientalist legacies in the film by using western material objects to legitimise Arati’s sense of success (Nagrath 2003; Niessen et al 2003; Tarlo 1996), pointing to the doxic habitus of Ray’s cinema. Ray’s depiction of middle-class aspiration through the placement of luxury sartorial items of that time (sunglasses, lipstick, bra) are taken for granted

and are distinct from tastes and aspirations from those outside of the middle-class western- educated, Tagore-educated Bengali habitus. Tagore’s philosophy runs throughout the film.

During the Indian Independence movement, Tagore challenged the essentialist views of

Hindu/Brahmo and Ghandhian views towards modernity as equating to western capitalism

(Hardiman 2003; Trivedi 2007). Tagore was sceptical of globalisation, yet cosmopolitan and progressive (Bhushan and Garfield 2014). For Tagore, national growth required transnational integration; he advocated neither total insulation from nor a complete adoption of foreign

[western] culture (Begum 2018). These themes run through the film in the way that Ray normalises the bra underneath a sheer sari blouse for Arati a middle-class respectable working woman. This is at a time when representations of the bra in Indian cinema was mostly associated with the vamp/vixen of the 1960s, a ‘loner’ which ‘marked the price of her [western] modernity’ (Wilkinson-Weber 2005: 142). The vamp, often a foreign dancer and rarely the protagonist, was distinguished by sexualised, semi-clad western/foreign clothing styles such as swimsuits and underwear. The significance of an exposed bra in Indian cinema at the time, differed to that of fitted, sleeveless sari blouses, fashionable at the time. Arguably, modern, revealing and sexualising, fitted blouses were still perceived traditional and adhering to a patriarchal vision of Indian modernity, thus deemed respectable and appropriate for middle- class society, as opposed to a threatening vision of scantily-clad foreign/western modernity. It was not until 1967 (four years after the The Big City was released) that controversy first broke out in India regarding the wearing of a swimsuit in Indian cinema by lead Bengali, upper-class actress Sharmila Tagore (distantly related to Tagore, her first film was Ray’s film Apur Sansar

1959) for the film An Evening in Paris (Dir ). Ray’s lack of censorship and seamless placement of the bra mapped onto the middle-class, respectable body of Arati four years before such controversy, further symbolises Ray’s Tagorian hopes for a cosmopolitan and tension-free vision of postcolonial global modernity. Outside of the frame of the bra, at best, the tension

between modernisation and tradition is dialectical, as we see through the tribulations and self- doubt that Arati undergoes to remain loyal to her Anglo-Indian colleague Edith. The relationship between Edith and Arati forms equal importance to the storyline of her relationship with her husband and her middle-class Bengali boss Mr Himangshu.

Figure 3: Edith and Arati, the first encounter (0:33 minutes) Source: Screenshot, The Big City (Ray 1963: Artificial Eye). Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

It is Edith whom she encounters on the stairwell on her first day of work, and we later learn that they share the same birthday. Both are starting their first day at work and are seen walking up to the elevator together (0:33 minutes). Edith is wearing a 1950s style A-line skirt and western-style blouse with a hand bag, similar to the ‘New Look’ Dior style commonly seen on

Hollywood actresses at the time (Bruzzi 2011). Arati is wearing a fashionable Indian sari, holding a euro-western clutch bag. Edith initiates the conversation by saying “Hello, I think we had our interviews on the same day, [pause] what silly questions they ask [pause], was that your boyfriend, the one you waved at…your boyfriend?” To which Arati nods to imply no, then points at her sindoor (the red dot-shaped vermillion on her forehead) to signify to Edith that she is married with a husband. To which Edith responds to by pointing at her engagement ring and states in Hindi “shaadi hoga” that she will be getting married. This discussion contextualises the ways in which both Edith and Arati subscribe to and later question middle- class patriarchal ideologies of validating female sexuality and social respectability through codes of marital status. The development of Edith and Arati’s friendship is portrayed in several scenes across the film, including when she receives an envelope with her first month’s wages.

In this scene, Arati is paid in new rupee notes in contrast to the old rupee notes which Edith

has received. On learning this, Arati insists on fairly exchanging new rupee notes with Edith’s old ones. In return, Edith gifts Arati a lipstick and a pair of sunglasses to acknowledge her kindness and fairness. Female relationships are reflected through compassionate (Konewko

2016; Mukherjee 2016) acts in neorealist cinema and Ray applies this style to Edith and Arati’s sharing of material pleasures and patriarchal experiences.

Figure 3: Arati pays Edith a home visit (1:42 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

1:42 minutes into the film, Arati visits Edith, who is off work due to sickness, to get a sales document signed. Arati is greeted by Edith’s mother whom she lives with in a one-bedroom apartment block, an in-between space compared to Mrs Singha’s gated mansion and Arati and

Subrata’s basic abode set in the old colonies. Edith’s home is seen as cluttered with fashionable items including, magazines, a megaphone and a rail of western dresses. This scene resembles the influences of Italian neorealist on Ray’s cinematic style and further contextualises the placement of western fashion in The Big City. Associations can be made to the neorealist masterpiece Rome Open City (Dir: Rosselini 1945) where the storyline is centred on courageous and rebellious women within the backdrop of a changing city. In particular, the friendship between Laura and Marina, who like Arati and Edith negotiate social class, power and agency through the acquisition of material pleasures such as the latest fashions (Konewko

2016). The apartment of Edith is aesthetically similar to Marina’s, a small space cluttered with the latest beauty items and dresses. Like Rosellini, Ray romanticises his female characters by imposing traditional roles on them through their desire for frivolous fashions (Konewko 2016:

191; Mukherjee 2016). At the same time, uses luxury and consumerism themes to threaten the virtuosity of the family and to generate a potent source of ambivalence towards the city (Wilson

1991). However, it is in the finale scene where Arati challenges Mr Himangshu for unfairly dismissing Edith, that we see Italian neorealist styles of compassion and rebellious female sexuality emerge through the dream-like spectacle of Arati’s bra.

Figure 4: Montage: Arati confronts Mr Himangshu for unfairly sacking Edith (2:05 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

In the final scene, Arati is seen in a rage of anger, walking into Mr Himangshu’s office demanding an explanation and an apology for unfairly sacking Edith. To which Mr Himangshu replies “you are jeopardising your own position. Would that Anglo-Indian friend have done the same for you?”. Throughout this encounter, similar to the previous encounter where she boldly requests a pay raise from Mr Himangshu, her bra is on display throughout. Arati is positioned facing her back to the camera. In this scene attention is drawn to the display of

Arati’s white bra under her sheer sari blouse. It is the bra in this situation that is instrumentally displayed to symbolise seamless dream-like possibility and construction of Arati’s brazen-ness, determination, courage as a career woman, attractive salesgirl, friend, mother and wife. This is contrary to the reality of Arati’s anxious feelings towards resigning from her job, which we see in an earlier scene. Even though Mr Himangshu is impressed by Arati’s work and explicitly favours Arati over Edith for her productivity, and dismisses Edith to replace her with Subrata her husband (a deal which takes place in an earlier scene between Subrata and Mr Himangshu which Arati is unaware of), this doesn’t guise Mr Himangshu’s support for a patriarchal and national version of modernity – where Indian women’s preferred identity as chaste bearers of

tradition is disguised through the construct of the new Indian woman who at the same time of being fashionable and hard-working is expected to be respectable and chaste (Oza 2001;

Thapan 2004). This is further depicted through Mr Himangshu’s comments where he is unable to justify dismissing Edith, repeatedly referring to her as “that Anglo-Indian girl”, as well as reminding Arati that her brazen-ness “Would have been appropriate from this [his] side of the table, not [hers]” and that she is “crossing [her] limits”. It is the brazen display of the bra, that reveals Ray’s style of engagement with contested borders and boundaries of tradition vs modernity against the feminised Indian body. Through material cinematic spaces Ray heightens the duality of competing versions of patriarchal modernities neither supportive of

Brahmo sentiments of women’s role being shielded from the influences of western civilisation and western-hyper sexuality (as symbolised by Mr Himangshu’s sexist attitudes towards

Edith). Nor a modernity supportive of Bengali intelligentsia, who wished to distinguish Indian modernity from the history of colonisation. Ray generates a sense of fantasy, a modern dream for India and Arati through the placement of the bra. The bra carves out a forbidden and emancipated space for Arati between the home and the world, east and west – a western style, free of the transmission and conjuncture of neoliberal ideologies of competition in the workplace and marketization (Chen 2018: 558).

Neorealist cinema, fashioning a utopia of female sexuality.

In The Big City Arati’s bra is an embodiment of her ambivalence and struggle to find her place between the home (traditional Bengali housewife) and the big city (new working woman in the city). The bra reflects the dichotomous debates in India at the time surrounding western modernity and colonial nationalism. In the realist style of west Bengali cinema, the

bra becomes an embodiment of a gendered third space, blurred between the boundaries of colonial/national modernity/tradition, self/society and desire/control. The bra is an instrumental tool of rupture which centres an active gaze that situates modernity, sexuality and erotic pleasure in Arati’s life without comprising her role to the ideal archetypes (wife, mother) of nationhood. The bra is an instrumental prop that stands in for a dream sequence, that is “unmaking the traditionally expected and making or asserting the value of the culturally “new” (Mukherjee 2016: 9)”.

The film ends with Arati running into Subrata’s arms after resigning from her job. Subrata consoles her and commends Arati for her bravery in standing up to Mr Himangshu, stating that he would have been unable to do the same. They both look up at an industrial tower block and Arati states ‘not knowing what fate has in store for us, I’m still feeling happy’.

Similar to the opening scene of the tram pylon which takes the audience into the industrial, modern and unknown, in the end Arati and Subrata are seen holding hands and walking through the city of Calcutta towards yet again into the industrial, modern and unknown. In this final scene, the bra is not on display, thus moves the viewer’s attention away from

Arati’s femininity as rupture, shattering of tradition (Mukherjee 2016), dreamlike, brazen and daring. A scene of realism and realisation, thus the absence of the bra emphasises the symbolic value of the semi-hidden bra, a utopia of seamless equality for women along the lines of east/west home/society, sexuality/respectability traditional/modern - a failed promise of modernization that nation-states have been unable to fulfil even today. In the end, Arati crafts her own agency, however only through the patriarchal privilege of her husband and through the kaleidoscope of a perfectly dressed body essential for portraying success (Bordo

1993; Entwistle 2000; Gill 2008). The female body continues to be situated along the dichotomy of home/world, east/west, sexual/chaste, colonial/national. This continues to be

seen in later films influenced by Ray (Mukherjee 2016), and continues to be represented through western fashion and undergarments such as lingerie and bra across mainstream

Bollywood films today (Begum 2018). The film however is considered a feminist film, for it’s depictions of strong female characters and compassionate male and female characters; a closer look at fashion within the film and brazen dream-like displays of the bra reveal the ways in which tensions are ongoing, thus agency is temporal, contextual and fluctuating.

Although, Ray romanticises his female characters through material fashions, thus reinforcing ideal gender roles and reinscribing patriarchal and colonial desires (Bhatia 2003). In other situations, however, we see through the slow sartorial transformation of Arati and the unspoken bra that is only to be looked at by the audience (and not the male characters in the film), that Arati’s forbidden desires, entangled between tensions of tradition and modernity are rendered active. Through transnational readings of Ray’s fashion in the film and through the representations of the ambivalent bra, we are able to understand through rich storytelling that ‘non-normative female behaviour—particularly sexual—has always constituted a liminal space, a site both of empowerment through transgression and containment through regulation’ (Bose 2008: 35). We are also able to situate the director’s political and aesthetic views within this, and detract that meanings of dress can change given contexts, times and social class habitus. Film, like a city, is able to provide a rich archive of contested, changing, magical yet binding, performative and stable (Wilson 1991) meanings of the bra in the urban

Indian middle-class context – “at a fundamental level, movement and change are the touchstones of the everyday “performance” of fashion—the wearing, the gesturing—as well as its life cycle and eventual decay” (Uhlirova 2015: 139).

This article fulfils several gaps within fashion studies scholarship, it contributes to fashion and film studies outside of the mainstream cinemas of Hollywood and Bollywood. By analysing

the bra, the article extends Indian dress cultures scholarship beyond the traditional sari to reveal a deeper set of postcolonial identity constructions. It also extends influential western scholarship on power dressing and intimate wear (corset, bra, lingerie and hosiery) and its links to modernity, sexuality and femininity to a non-western context. Furthermore, the transnational links to Italian neorealist cinema on Ray’s cinematic aesthetics reveal the ways in global film cultures influence fashion in local film cultures and can tell multi-layered and subliminal stories of our real and imaginary relationship to our identities, past, present and future.

References

Amy-Chinn, Dee. 2006.This is just for me(n): how the regulation of post-feminist lingerie advertising perpetuates woman as objects. Journal of Consumer Culture, 6 (2): 155- 175. Banaji, Shakuntala. 2006. Reading ‘Bollywood’ The Young Audience and Hindi Films. Palgrave Macmillan Bannerji, Himani. 2001. Inventing subjects’ studies in hegemony, patriarchy and colonialism. Tulika India. Bhabha K. Homi. 1997. Signs taken for wonders: questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi May 1817. The Location of Culture. 102-122. London: Routledge. Bhatia, Nandi (2003) Fashioning Women in Colonial India, Fashion Theory, 7:3-4: 327-344. Bhushan, Nalini, Garfield, L. Jay. 2014. ‘Swaraj and Swadeshi: Gandhi and Tagore on Ethics, Development and Freedom’. Smith College, Yale University, Available at: http://jaygarfield.commons.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp- content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/garfield_swaraj.pdf (accessed on 07 March 2018). Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bose, Brinda. 2008. Modernity, Globality, Sexuality, and the City: A Reading of Indian Cinema. The Global South, Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2008, pp. 35-58. Indiana University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Bruzzi, Stella. 2011. “It will be magnificent obsession:” Feminity, desire and the new look in 1950s Hollywood melodrama. 160-180 In Munich, Adrienne. 2011. Fashion in film: new direction in national cinemas. Indiana University Press Chatterjee, Partha. 1989. Colonialism, nationalism and colonized women: The contest in India. American Ethnologist 16: 622-633. Chen, Eva. 2013. Fashioning the cosmopolitan girl: sartorial display and technologies of femininity in the Chinese bestseller Du Lala. Fashion Theory. 17:5, 553-577. Cooper, Darius. 2000. The cinema of Satyajit Ray: between tradition and modernity. Cambridge University Pres, USA. Entwistle, Joannne. 2000. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fields, Jill. 2007. An Intimate Affair, Women Lingerie, and Sexuality. Berkeley: University of California Press. Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality: Volume I, Introduction, Penguin, Foucault, Michel. 1988. Technologies of the Self. In Luther, H., Huck, M.G., and Hutton, P.H. (Eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, pp: 16–49, Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press: Forbes, Geraldine. 1996. Women in Modern India. Cambridge University Press. Gill, Rosalind. 2008. Empowerment/Sexism: Figuring Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising. Feminism Psychology. Vol 18 (1): 35 – 60. Groversons India. 2013. About Us: History. Available at: http://www.groversonsindia.com/about.html, (accessed on 02 May 2015). Hardiman, David. 2003. Gandhi: In his time and ours, the global legacy of his ideas. New York, Columbia University Press. Jantzen, Christian, Østegaard, Per and Vieria Sucena Carla. 2006. Becoming a woman to the backbone: Lingerie consumption and the experience of feminine identity. Journal of Consumer Culture 6: 177-202. Karlekar, Malaivika. 2005. Re-visioning the past early photography in Bengal 1875 to 1915. Oxford University Press, India.

MacMillan, Margaret. 2007. Women of the Raj: The mothers, wives, and daughters of the British Empire in India. Random House Trade. Mukherjee, Srimati. 2016. Women and Resistance in Contemporary Bengali Cinema. Routledge, 2016. Nagrath, Sumati. 2003. (En)countering Orientalism in High Fashion: A review of India Fashion Week 2002’. Fashion Theory. Vol 7 (3/4):361–376. Konewko, Milli Simonetta (2016). Neorealism and the New Italy: Compassion in the Development of Italian Identity. Palgrave Macmillan. Niessen, Sandra, Leshkowich Ann-Marie and Carla Jones. 2003. Re-orienting fashion: The globalization of Asian dress. Oxford: Berg. Oza, Rupal. 2001. Showcasing India: gender, geography and globalization. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 26: 1067-1095. Ray, Satyajit, dir. 1963. The Big City (Mahanagar). Artificial Eye. Amazon Online Video Library Rosselini, Roberto, dir. 1945. Rome Open City (Roma città aperta). Artificial Eye. Amazon Online Video Library Ruberto, E. Laura, Wilson. M. Kristi. 2007. Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema. Wayne State University Press. Steele, Valerie. 2004. Femme Fatale: fashion and visual culture in Fin-desiècle Paris. Fashion Theory. 8:3, 315-328. Steele, Valerie. 1985. Fashion and eroticism: ideals of feminine beauty from the Victorian Era to the Jazz Age. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sangari, Kumkum and Sudesh Vaid. 1990. In Recasting women: Essays in Indian colonial history. Edited by Sangari, Kumkum and Sudesh Vaid. New York: Rutgers University Press. Tarlo, Emma. 1996. Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India. London: Hurst & Co. Thapan, Meenakshi. 2004. Embodiment and identity in contemporary society: Femina and the New Indian woman. Contributions to Indian Sociology 38: 411-444. Trivedi, Lisa. 2007. Clothing Gandhi's Nation: Homespun and Modern India. Indiana University Press Uhlirova, Marketa. 2013. 100 Years of the Fashion Film: Frameworks and Histories. Fashion Theory. 17:2, 137-157. Wilkinson-Weber, Clare. 2005. Tailoring expectations: How film costumes become the audience's clothes. South Asian Popular Culture: Special Issue on Bollywood Audiences. 3(2), 135-160. Wilson, Elizabeth. 2005. Sphinx in the city: urban life, the control of disorder, and women. University of California Press.

i It is the widespread mass manufacturing of the bra in the west and later across the world by western companies and popularisation by Hollywood (Fields 2007) that lends to the perceived inherently western connotations of the bra across the world and in India. The bra appeared as an alternative to the uncomfortable corset in the 1900s and first patented by Mary Phelps Jacobs in New York 1914 under the name Caresse Crosby calling her invention ‘the backless brassiere’. Mary sold her rights to the Warner Brothers Corset Company who went onto sell the most popular brassiere in the next thirty years (Fields 2007). India’s oldest lingerie brand Groversons Paris Beauty (since 1953) began mass manufacturing bras to Indian women who aspired to western fashions (hence the naming Paris) and were used to getting them imported from the west or tailored (Groversons India 2013). Nowadays, the bra is associated with the rise in western clothing and western fashion retailing in India.

List of Figures

Figure 1: There’s an English saying…a woman’s place is in the home (0:15 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions© .

Figure 2: Arati on Her First Day as a Salesgirl in her Fashionable Clothes: (0:44 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

Figure 3: Arati pays Edith a home visit (1:42 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©

Figure 4: Montage: Arati confronts Mr Himangshu for unfairly sacking Edith (2:05 minutes) Source: Screenshot, Ray 1963: Artificial Eye. Reproduced by permission of R.D.Bansal Productions©